The jail cell where former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick will be incarcerated at the Wayne County Andrew C. Baird Detention Facility is shown in Detroit. Kilpatrick begins a 120-day sentence on Tuesday for obstruction of justice for false testimony in a civil trial involving former police officers.

Kwame Kilpatrick

Detroit Free Press/AP

By Jim Schaefer, Detroit Free Press

DETROIT  Inside the spartan Wayne County Jail cell where former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is expected to spend four months beginning Tuesday, there's no evidence of Jack Kevorkian or White Boy Rick.

There are clues to other apparent former residents of 14J-4 — they just aren't as notorious as Dr. Death or drug kingpin Richard Wershe.

Bam-Bam. Repo. Little Dee. Crew Dad.

Those names are etched on a tiny bathroom mirror, right where the Democrat will see them each day when he begins serving a 120-day sentence in the text message scandal — a drama that has cost the metro area $14 million and counting.

There are other words scratched into the reflection of the shoebox-sized mirror, such as "CRIPS" and "S.L.O.B."

And this: "Pray."

Kilpatrick was sentenced to 120 days in jail Tuesday by Wayne Circuit Judge David Groner, and the now-convicted felon will begin paying the penalty he agreed to last month when he pleaded guilty to two counts of obstructing justice by perjuring himself at last year's police whistle-blower trial.

It is expected that after the sentencing, Kilpatrick will immediately head to jail, where he'll exchange his monogrammed shirts and big-knot tie for a standard-issue green jumpsuit.

And the man who once charged lavish hotel rooms on a city credit card will begin bunking in a place that costs the county $115 a night.

Kilpatrick's cell is tucked away in a corner of the second floor, past the medical section where other inmates visit and down a long corridor with a few missing ceiling tiles overhead.

His cell is formed of concrete blocks, a heavy steel door and painted a light cream. It's all he'll see for up to 23 hours a day through the holidays and his youngest son's birthday.

With good time, he should emerge in early February.

Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans said Kilpatrick will be treated like any other prisoner, with one big exception.

He will be segregated from the general population for his safety. Even the mayor's one hour of daily recreation time will be solo; he can play basketball or jog — by himself.

Evans said high-profile inmates like Kilpatrick draw too much attention.

"Nobody's ambivalent about them," Evans said. "You either love them or hate them … because of that, we segregate."

Other inmates in the county jail — current population about 2,200 — can commingle outside their double-bunked cells for up to 15 hours a day.

Sheriff's spokesman John Roach said that is one reason why Kilpatrick's cell is larger than normal.

At 15 feet by 10 feet, the cell is roughly twice the size of a normal one. His bed has rails like a hospital gurney, and the mattress is thin, rubber-coated and appears to be too short for the 6-foot-4 Kilpatrick.

Otherwise, the room has a tiny table and a plastic blue chair for reading, and a generous number of windows by jail standards.

Kilpatrick's view through three vertical glass slits will show him the south side of the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice, where his fate was sealed in an eight-count felony warrant issued in March after the Free Press obtained and published his text messages.

The texts showed he lied under oath about his intimate relationship with then-aide Christine Beatty, and tried to mislead jurors about the firing of one cop.

Cell 14J-4 has a second, smaller room with a shower and a toilet. A push of the shower's button delivers a thin spray of lukewarm water. There is no door for privacy.

On Monday, the room had an antiseptic smell during a tour for reporters, and it appeared fairly clean and devoid of the infamous roaches said to inhabit the jail. A ventilation grate was jammed with tissue paper to damper either the air conditioning or the heat.

Kilpatrick will have the same eating schedule as everyone else: breakfast between 5 and 6 a.m., lunch around 11:30, dinner between 4 and 5. Lights out at 10 p.m.

Kilpatrick has a pay phone on the wall of his cell, and his calls will be recorded, under jail procedure. The phone has a 1-foot cord to the earpiece, presumably to keep prisoners from hanging themselves.

Evans said the cell is the same one in which Kilpatrick spent a night last summer, when a judge held him overnight for violating the terms of his bond by traveling to Windsor without permission.

It's "no country club," the sheriff said. "It's not anything anyone wants to come back to."

Evans flatly denied recent talk among other county inmates that Kilpatrick will get special privileges, including better food.

"The more we are able to treat Mr. Kilpatrick as just another inmate," Evans said, "the better off we will be."

But there are some differences. Kilpatrick will have essentially the same visitors' restrictions, with his family and friends permitted in to see him just once a week for a half-hour. Jail restrictions prevent children from visiting, but Evans said he is weighing an exception for the ex-mayor's three young sons.

He said supervisors are taking care to select certain exemplary deputies to have contact with Kilpatrick in an effort to avoid problems, like trying to take photos with the mayor.

Jeriel Heard, who oversees jail operations, said Kilpatrick will eat what everyone else eats, and can buy chips and candy from the commissary if someone deposits money for him to spend. During Kilpatrick's last stay, a rumor had him eating food delivered from a local restaurant, which sheriff's officials have denied.

When asked to characterize the jail food, Heard said, "We have the food pyramid. These are human beings."

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